Market Intelligence
Market intelligence is collecting, analysing and reporting market information to assist in making decisions about market opportunities, market strategies, and market development.
Market Intelligence can include four major functions:
- Market analysis - market information and data
- Product attributes - market attributes and points of differentiation
- Competitor intelligence - competitor products and competitive position
- Market research - consumer and customer research
How can market intelligence benefit your business?
If an business wants to be close to the market, it needs to fully understand it, including the roles competitors and customers play, including:
- market and consumer orientation
- identification of new opportunities – identify new trends before our markets and competitors
- early warning of competitor moves – enable counter measures
- minimising investment risks – detect threats and trends early on
- better customer interaction – inherit intensified customer market view
- better market selection & positioning – understand where your offer fits and discover untapped or under-served potential
- quicker, more efficient and cost-effective information.
Successful businesses spend time understanding their competition. Watching what your competition does can impact on the success of your business, so by keeping an eye on your competitors and trying to keep ahead of them – using market intelligence - you may be able to stay ahead of the pack.
You can understand your competitors by:
- Identifying key competitors
- Working out what they are doing in the market place
- Assessing their strengths and weaknesses
- Selecting which competitors to go head to head with or avoid.
When identifying who the potential competitors are, it is important to realise that the most dangerous competitor is not necessarily one with the same category of product, rather the one that is trying to satisfy the same consumer need.
Farmers Union Iced Coffee might consider its competition to come from other iced coffee makers; or, more broadly, other mass market beverage manufacturers such as Coca Cola. However, a category that has come out of the blue in recent years and achieved significant market penetration is Boost Juice and its imitators, offering fruit and milk based smoothies.
Once you have worked on understanding your competitors, and where your business sits relative to them, it is time to develop ‘competitive strategies’. These are the actions you will take to enable you to compete while meeting the needs of your market.
The market is not a big group of people just waiting for your product. In addition to this, you can not be all things to all people. It is important to work out who in the crowd really wants your product and is prepared to pay for it. This is called market segmentation (identification) and is a key strategy in developing a successful business.
By undertaking the market segmentation process you will then be in the position to identify your target market; that is the portion of the market that you want to reach with your marketing and who are most likely to respond to your message and promotions. This will mean that any product development and promotions that you undertake will be aimed directly at the consumers who are most likely to respond, thus ensuring that you get the best return on value of any investment made in product development and promotions.
- Identify and specify the market
- Estimate the market’s potential size more accurately and evaluate its feasibility
- Identify the specific needs of the market
- Tailor the marketing mix exactly to fit the needs of the market
- Reduce marketing costs by being more effective and more efficient
It is important to note that your market segmentation will change over time, so it is worth redoing the process at least every 2-3 years.
Want more information?
The Market Intelligence Unit provides a market focus and market analysis to guide Government, industry sector and industry organisation strategic planning through an understanding of performance, trends and competitive position in South Australia’s:
- Existing and potential international and interstate markets
- Production and supply chain capability
- Export strategy and market access issues
The Unit determines and communicates key trends and drivers that will impact on South Australian food exporters including:
- Market opportunities
- Market requirements
- Competitive position
and matches identified market opportunities and trends with:
- Existing and developing South Australian production and supply chain capability
- The need for value chain development, developing industry capability, innovation and market development
How has the SA Food Centre helped others?
The SA Food Centre has published a number of reports, articles and case studies. They provide examples of the work Food Centre staff have done with individual businesses.
Reports
Market Summary of South Australian Food Industry
Market Summary of South Australian Seafood
Market Overview of Fruit, Vegetables and Nuts
Market Overview of South Australian Grains
Food consumption and consumers - Who, what, where and why?
Wine Markets and Consumers Opportunities and Challenges for the Langhorne Creek wine region
Articles
Intelligent trends in horticulture
Fishing for export success
Market snapshot reveals success of SA food industry
Analysing opportunities for growth
Case studies
The SA Food Centre has developed a range of case studies on businesses such as Australian Mushrooms, Barossa Fine Foods, Kinkawooka Shellfish and Tarac Technologies which highlight understanding your consumers.
Faces of food
The special people who make and create some of the State’s leading food products and businesses know the importance of understanding the consumer and using market intelligence.
Who can I contact?
The SA Food Centre is on hand to assist the food industry. In contacting the Centre,we can provide advice on what market intelligence would be useful for your business.
- Page last modified: November 15, 2011, 5:54 pm
- Welcome URL is http://www.safoodcentre.com.au/
- This page: http://www.safoodcentre.com.au/consumers/market_intelligence
